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February 2017

For the past 20 years, I’ve been preaching that buyers of audio gear in the mid- to upper price levels should spend some of their shopping time appraising the professional marketplace. In the beginning, I had to recommend jury-rigged systems with huge audio interfaces that had multiple microphone preamps, various digital inputs and outputs, and inputs/outputs that most audiophiles have never used. (Got any balanced TRS 1/4” cables in your storage box?)

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February 2017

Warp 280
Format: CD

Musical Performance

Sound Quality

Overall Enjoyment

Brian Eno is one of the rare figures in music who has preferred to work offstage and never claimed instrumental authority. Aside from a brief period with Roxy Music and even briefer forays with Roxy Music guitarist Phil Manzanera and King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp, Eno has remained in the studio, turning out more than two dozen albums under his own name and, much more successfully, serving as a producer for U2 and Coldplay.

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January 2017

John Huston’s Heist Masterpiece on Blu-Ray

The Criterion Collection 847
Format: Blu-ray

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In 1950, John Huston directed The Asphalt Jungle for MGM and set the pattern for virtually every caper/heist movie to follow. Rififi in particular, with its intricate, suspenseful, nearly dialogueless depiction of a theft, owes much to Huston.

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January 2017

As this column posts, the editors and writers of SoundStage! will be packing their bags for Las Vegas and the 2017 International Consumer Electronics Show. I’ve already received embargoed information about many of the products to be launched at CES 2017, and based on that (sorry, can’t reveal specifics until the show starts) and information I’ve picked up from talks with manufacturers and engineers, I have six predictions about what we’ll see at CES and in the rest of 2017.

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January 2017

Koss Corporation’s UR42i over-ear headphones cost $49.99 USD. That price is unbelievably low for a set of serious cans, but the veteran headphone maker has often proved that inexpensive ’phones don’t have to sound inexpensive. I was curious to hear if the UR42i’s would be more proof.

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Audiofly AF1120 earphones measurements can be found by clicking this link.

January 2017

We audiophiles think of ourselves as sophisticated, discerning consumers, but the “more is better” trend in earphones makes me wonder. In this case, “more” means more drivers. You can now buy earphones, such as 64 Audio’s A12s, with as many as 12 drivers per earpiece. Yet you can also buy high-end earphones, such as Sennheiser’s IE 800s, with just a single driver per ear. And, of course, you can get models in between, such as Audiofly’s six-driver AF1120 earphones ($699.99 USD).

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January 2017

Auricle 16/17
Format: CD (2)

Musical Performance

Sound Quality

Overall Enjoyment

For both commercial and musical reasons, longstanding bands are rare in improvised music. The trio BassDrumBone, which celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2017, is unusual, then, in terms of longevity, but even more unusual in instrumental makeup. Bassist Mark Helias, 66; drummer Gerry Hemingway, 61; and trombonist Ray Anderson, 64, were all up-and-coming young men in 1977 when they got together for the first time to play in New Haven, Connecticut. Hemingway, a New Haven native, was already teaching and developing a unique approach to codifying non-traditional percussion sounds. Helias was studying at Yale, and Anderson was a nascent member of Anthony Braxton’s group. Hemingway thought they might gel as a trio, and clearly they did.

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December 2016

As our new house on the North Carolina coast was being built, one of the things Mrs. East and yrs trly decided was that this winter we weren’t going to shovel snow. If you’ve shoveled snow, you get this. If you haven’t, it’s like jail -- something you don’t want to experience. So what better way to adapt to coastal life than to rent a beach condo? One thing we’ve learned over many years of summer Carolina Beach rentals: Good luck getting one with anything close to acceptable audio. With good reason, seasonal landlords don’t trust renters with anything but the cheapest, most rudimentary audio and/or video gear.

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December 2016

Robert Altman’s Unique Western on Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 827
Format: Blu-ray

Overall Enjoyment

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Extras

American film director Robert Altman loved to bend familiar genres to his own purposes. M*A*S*H (1970) was like no other war movie that had preceded it. McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971) turned the typical showdown-and-shoot-out Western into a Northwestern, set in the fictional mountain town of Presbyterian Church.

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December 2016

A pro-audio company recently asked me to run measurements on a prototype recording monitor -- the kind of speaker recording engineers and producers use to listen to what they’re recording and mixing. I thought the task would be simple. I own a pair of Genelec recording monitors, and they measure almost perfectly: nearly dead flat on axis, with a smoothly increasing treble rolloff as I move off axis. But the job turned out to be quite complicated, and it raised some questions about what, exactly, I should be listening for when I test speakers and headphones.

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